This and that

I can't believe I'm actually managing to write a quick post on a Wednesday!  I have this theory that twice-weekly posting (Sundays and Wednesdays) would be nice, and keep me on track.  But lately (as I'm sure you've noticed) it's been a miracle to make my Sunday post.  However, I have gotten past three big deadlines this week (just hit "submit" on the third), not to mention scads of grading (including one of those twelve-hour piles - as in, it takes at least twelve actual hours of grading to get through it; I have to spread those out or I find myself getting bitter and failing people just because my butt hurts from sitting too long).  So I figure I can reward myself by thinking about fiber for a few minutes. 

I still don't have any shots of me actually wearing Poplar and Elm (although people have seen me wearing it, so it does exist).  With luck, that will happen this weekend, when Rick is around to take actual pictures.  Having Rick around is also a prerequisite to getting a picture of the first Blunnie Sock, which I have finished (no-one else's feet are even close to big enough to model his socks)(I should also say that I immediately cast on for the second sock in order to ward off the dreaded SSS).  Nevertheless, there are other interesting things to show off. 

I have been spinning, off and on.  Spinning makes me happy.  I got through this:

That is four ounces of Polwarth top, in the Misty Water colorway, handpainted by Erica (whose fiber I adore - every one I've tried has spun up like a dream, and the colors make me very happy).  I'm trying a little experiment here.  I spun that up woollen, fairly fine - Polwarth seems to cry out for woollen spinning, and this turned out light and lofty.

The experiment part comes next.  On her blog, Erica has occasionally shown braids of some of her colorways wound together (that temptress); she made the mistake of showing Misty Water with a braid of BFL in SeaGreen, and I snapped them both up.

The plan is to ply them together, which isn't so experimental.  But the plan is also to spin the BFL worsted, which is the kind of spinning that BFL seems to me to cry out for (all that lovely shine just gets maximized that way).  So the hope is that I'll end up with something that blends the traits of that warm, light, fuzzy Polwarth with the long, strong, shiny BFL.  Stay tuned.

The more I get to try different fibers, the more I'm intrigued by immense range of texture and function that the fiber world offers.  So when I saw that Ellen and Jan had each gotten a sampler of fiber from Woolgatherings, I jumped on the bandwagon (they are kind enough to not seem to mind).

And that's not the half of it!  There's a whole other layer in there - 24 total.

I made Rick stand and feel each one while I told him their names (he, too, is a patient person who humors me).  The names make me so unutterably happy I can't tell you - how can one not be excited about fiber like Shetland Humbug?  I mean, really.  The plan is to choose a couple of these each month to research and spin up, and to compare notes with Jan and Ellen.  I am really looking forward to it.  I'm teaching a class at my LYS on the 17th on getting to know one's fiber, both for making good yarn/project pairings (for knitters) and for spinners who want to think about the range of fiber possibilities available to them.  As an inspiration for me, Erica sent me a huge bag of all kinds of wonderful fibers I'd never seen or touched before, and I'll be showing those off to students (I need to get a picture of that, too).  So while I'm hoping I might inspire some local folks to take an interest in playing with me, I don't have a study group like that yet - I love that I have a long-distance one, with people who are as nuts weird interested in learning new things as I.

And speaking of ranges of possibilities and fabulous names, look at what I'm knitting right now.

That is Rams and Yowes, a lap blanket pattern by Kate Davies, she of the famous Sheepheid (which I also now have yarn to knit).  I love that she wrote both patterns to celebrate the immense diversity of colors of Shetland wool - the blanket has nine different colors.  And oh, the names!  We've got gaulmogot, and mooskit, shaela, and yuglet.  I (naturally) started poking around, looking for etymologies of the names, but only have been able to find information for two: sholmit and moorit (if anyone knows about any of the others, please, please let me know!).  Sholmit comes from a Gaelic word meaning "Having a white face, as of ox or cow"; and moorit comes from a root morand-r, meaning "brown mingled with black and red" - it is cognate with English murrey, and French moree, and comes from an older root mor-.

Wool and language all mixed together.  It just doesn't get much better than that.

Randomness

So.  I actually did finish the sweater last Monday night, in time to wear it to teach on Valentine's Day (one of my regular students, who has taken many of my classes and knows me well, knew me well enough to ask whether I'd knitted it, which was kind of nice).  I have been putting off posting until I could get some pictures of it (and of the new happy project I have OTN, plus the spinning I'm working on), but I have not been able to motivate myself to get my camera out and get cracking.  So I thought I'd better post in any case.

It's been a rough month, frankly.  I lost a friend at the end of January, and very soon after that, another friend became very ill - the kind of ill that sometimes turns out in the worst possible way.  The very good news is that she is recovering, but those things have been on my mind, in unpostable sorts of ways, and it's been making it hard to get myself moving.  It doesn't help that February once again (I seem to remember this happening last year) turned into a month of deadlines, so that what little motivation I have had has been expended on those, and I have been letting everything else fall by the wayside in favor of being at home with my family.

I have been thinking, though, about the role of the internet in both of my friends' illnesses.  In different sorts of ways, their experiences had an online presence, which gave friends and family from near and far the ability to know how they were doing, and to send their loving thoughts.  And now that their illnesses are over, one way or the other, that record of their experience, and of those loving thoughts, remain.  Part of what got me thinking about this is the fact that in both cases, I tended not to log my responses to this online presence through comments - for some reason, when it comes to things like that, I tend to prefer either private email, or real person-to-person contact.

Like many of you, I am old enough to remember clearly a time before the interwebs (I did not invent the world wide web, mind you - I just remember what it was like before it was created, heh).  And, for that matter, before email.  A time when people sent, you know, letters.  Written on paper.  With ink.  And as the use of email expanded, I would occasionally soliloquize mournfully (in my head) about the loss of these artifacts, these letters, and wonder what future generations would think of us, when there was nothing concrete remaining of these quotidian messages, windows into everyday lives?  (Note the irony: I have never been good about writing letters, EVER - I am a much better email correspondent than I am a paper mail correspondent.  The post office gives me hives.)  But honestly, I think I have always thought of electronic media as ephemeral.  (And, in my defense, if you've ever had a hard drive wiped, or lost an entire linguistic database because of a computer upgrade that somehow left it behind because your new Parallels H-drive can't see your old Parallels H-drive - why yes, I am speaking from experience - then you know why I thought of e-media as ephemeral, and in fact, as aggressively and capriciously ephemeral.)

But here's the thing.  Right now, my friend's words live on, even though she can't write any more.  And the love and worry and support that her friends wrote to her also live on.  My other friend regained consciousness to find an entire record of her friends' love and concern for her, all expressed while she didn't even know it was happening.  But there it is, out there in the ether, in little electronic impulses of 1s and 0s (if I understand this right) - ephemeral but somehow, simultaneously, entirely real and enduring.

Come to think of it, that sounds a lot like love itself, doesn't it?  Utterly ephemeral, and entirely real.

That's not where I thought I was going with this, but I think I like it.

So close to a sweater

I really am very close to a sweater now - I have two sleeves, a back, and one front.  The second front is cast on. While knitting that piece, I must contemplate the edging.  The pattern calls for crochet, but I am not all that fond of crochet, both as a process and as a trim - I've done it on sweaters before and have been less happy with it than I might be (I admit here and now that this could be because my execution is poor - please do not read this as a condemnation of the craft in general).  I may do i-cord instead.  I may leave it as is.  Only time will tell.

What sweater, you may ask (it having been so long since there was much in the way of knitting content around here)?  Poplar and Elm, I reply.  I am knitting it out of HazelKnits Entice, and I can find no flaw in this yarn.  I'm liking the pattern rather a lot, too.  I did get a titch paranoid about whether I was knitting a size that will be big enough for me, though, so I blocked the back and sleeves before casting on for the first front, just to be sure.  (I'd like everyone to be proud of me for a moment here, though - note that I did not just knit a size bigger than it seemed like I ought to, just to be sure it would fit, as I have done in the past.)

It's all good.  I wasn't so worried about the sleeves, but it was a relief to see the back block out as I'd hoped it would.  I should mention that the one modification I've been making to this pattern is to make the body three inches longer than called for (and I'm relieved to have enough yarn).  It is written as a fairly short garment, meant to fall above the waist-band of jeans, for example, and I know that that's just not my style (nor particularly flattering to me), so I adjusted.

The motifs on this are quite nice, pairing, as they do, an openwork increase on the sleeves, with the same motif using M1 increases for the body.  I am particularly enamored of the body motif, I must admit (this is why I haven't cleared the blocked pieces off the end of the dining room table yet).

Isn't it beautiful?  Just the right amount of texture, and this yarn shows it off wonderfully.  The sleeves are nice, too.

I didn't block them aggressively, both because they didn't need it for the size, and because I know from experience that sleeves tend to open up in the wearing in a way that the body of a sweater (or a shawl) just doesn't.  So I took it easy on that. I didn't even pin any of this out - just got the pieces good and wet, and then stretched then out on the blocking mats and let them dry. 

My spinning is calling to me, but I am so close on this that I think I'll plow through until the second front is done.  Maybe even this weekend?  Hmmm...

A dark week

It's been a long week, for lots of reasons.  The upshot is that I didn't post on Sunday, and that I have no photos of any of the knitting I've been doing (Poplar and Elm has a second sleeve, and I'm about six inches into the back).

Today, however, is Imbolc*.  Halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, Imbolc reminds me that the light does come back - truly it does!  It's also a day that people often post poetry on their blogs, and while I don't usually do that, I thought I would today.  This one has been in my mind this week.

Success
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
And the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation
Of honest critics
And endure the betrayal
Of false friends;

To appreciate beauty,
To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better
Whether by a healthy child,
A garden patch,
Or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life had breathed easier
Because you have lived.
That is to have succeeded.
          Ralph Waldo Emerson



*Actually, some years Imbolc is February 1st, some it's February 2nd.  I'm sticking with today because it makes me happier.

Knit through all things

It's been a rough couple of weeks, for various reasons - somehow even reading has seemed to require too much of the wrong kind of brainpower - so I have been knitting.  (I have also been spinning, but haven't taken any pictures of that yet.  Soon.)

In keeping with the plan of moving ahead with projects long-planned but not-yet-executed, I cast on for a pair of socks for Rick.  These are the Blunnie Socks, from last year's Rockin' Sock Club.  And they are knitted* on size zero needles (take that, size 15s!).  I don't have any pictures yet, but the first one is moving along fairly rapidly, and I am about halfway through the gusset. 

I also dithered for some time about the best way to use my precious three skeins of HazelKnits Entice (colorway Violeta), purchased at Sock Summit.  You know how easy it is to get crazy about finding the absolute perfect way to use up yarn that you really love?  It was threatening to get that way, until I finally talked myself down by reminding myself that there is more beautiful yarn out there in the world, and that getting attached is unhealthy (I swear, knitting up luxury yarn is excellent practice in non-attachment).  I decided on Poplar and Elm (silencing the monkey brain that wondered whether a wrap style is a mistake, since Rick isn't fond of them, blah blah blah), and cast on.

I am one sleeve in, and loving every minute of this knit.

This yarn is absolutely scrumdiddlyumptious.  So soft and squishy and happy.  It also took well to the ripping and reknitting I did (twice) at the start of the sleeve.  I decided that I was too impatient to knit an actual gauge swatch, but that I would knit the sleeves first, as a reasonable approximation thereof.  I cast on with the suggested size 5s, but after an inch or so, thought that things seemed too big.  So I ripped and went down to size 4s.  But after four inches or so, it was clear that 4s were going to be too small (and I'm knitting a size which is on the small side in any case, so a bit big is much better than a lot small), so I ripped that and went back to the size 5s.  And did all of this ripping make me cranky?  No, indeed it did not.  Because did I mention that the yarn is amazing?  And that I'm working with my lovely Signature needles, gifts of my beloved SIL?  And that I am NOT working on size 15 needles?  I'm in my happy space.

Yesterday, I also taught a silk hankie class at my LYS - always great fun.  I went in with some mawata that I'd stashed away for my next class, but when I got there, found that a new shipment of hankies had come in from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks.  And there, right in the middle of the pile, was the perfect colorway to go with my newly-finished purple scarf.  So I snagged that one and used it to demonstrate technique during class (casting on my own pair of mitts in the process).  I finished the first one last night, and the second one today, and I am pleased as punch.  I have long been wanting a pair of mitts for myself, so this is a real treat.

Nice, no?  The colorway is Cabernet, and I am just delighted with them.  The pattern is one I put together for the class, and it seems to do the trick, while leaving plenty of scope for play for students who want to add a little somethin' somethin'.  I also picked up another mawata in a colorway (I think it's Lagoon?) that will go with the second one of these scarves that I'm knitting (although this Cabernet one should go with both of them when worn together).  But I'll probably hold off on knitting those until the scarf is done - a sort of bribe, as it were.

Classes start this week, so it's off to the races for me.  

*I saw a letter in the recent issue of The Knitter from someone who expressed her vast annoyance that the magazine had recently taken on the habit ("appalling" was implied) of using "knitted" as the past tense of "knit", when everyone ("cretin" was implied) knows that the correct past tense of "knit" is "knit".  In keeping with this prescriptivism, I would like to point out that the above usage is not the past tense (in fact, I do often use "knit" as the past tense of "knit", although I now have an overpowering urge to do otherwise, in as Uhmurrikan a way as I can manage), but is in fact the past participial form of the verb "knit", since that is a passive up there.  I contend that the past participle of "knit" is "knitted" and will defend my stance against all comers.**  Hmph.

**Don't you love grammatical curmudgeonliness and chest-beating?  Can't you sense the dripping sarcasm?

A knitting blog should have knitting...

Right?

And so I do.  Along with gathering up projects long-planned but delayed in execution (off with their heads!), I have also been gathering up WIPs.  By which I mean, if I am going to be entirely honest, I have been sidling up to my WIPs, trying not to make direct eye contact, lest they charge.

However, I have finished two of them.  They are two of the most recently cast-on, admittedly, but they are, nevertheless, off the needles.

The first is the Leif Slipover, which I knitted for Older Daughter.

I have my doubts about the wearability of this vest, to be absolutely frank.  It's bulky.  I admit that I have serious prejudices about bulky yarn - most of those have to do with the fact that it's...well...bulky.  It doesn't drape in any sense of the word.  I guess it's cozy (right?).  And cozy is nice.  I think what it boils down to for me, though, is that I never feel like it's moving with me when I wear bulky stuff.  I feel like my clothes are wearing me instead of the other way around.  I'm really hoping that Older Daughter doesn't share my prejudices.  (It may help that she has easily four inches on me, too; I think height helps when wearing big clothes.)(OK, I guess it's almost five inches by now.  I'm still in denial.)

Here's what made me knit it, though.

That, right there, is a very cool design feature.  Very cool.  And I do love how sculptural the cables are at this gauge.  I knitted it on size 15 needles, instead of 17s, but other than that, I knitted the pattern as written.

I also knitted it because it seemed like a cool, teenager-y sort of knit.  I so hope I'm right.  It hasn't been blocked - in no small part because I think it'd take forever to dry, and we're finally having some coolth around here, so I thought she might want to wear it.  I'll ascertain whether I'm right and then find a time to block it - maybe that'll improve the drape?

The cables are cool, though.

I should be more enthusiastic about this one, I know.  It's the color she wanted, and I'm pretty sure she likes it.  I think that this particular knit just combined too many elements of which I am not fond, and, frankly, I was totally underwhelmed by the pattern-writing.  I kept wondering where IK's tech editor was on the day they finalized it for print (and I know enough to know that this may have nothing to do with the designer's original pattern-writing skills).  There were a lot of bits in there that just made no sense whatsoever, and I admit to being pretty glad that I was able to "read" the cables to see where things were supposed to be going.  That said, I think that the design itself is very nice; I particularly like the waist join (as I mentioned), and the designer does a nifty thing under the arms, in which one picks up the purl bumps just below the stitches used for the two fronts as part of the back - it's a nice way to create an overlap under the arms that tightens things up and looks clean. 

I think you can see it there.  But you can also see how bulky this is!!

OK, I'm over it.  I also finished a project which is the exact opposite of this one in every way.

(In spite of how happy Older Daughter looks wearing this, it's mine.)  Actually, to be fair, I'm only halfway done.  This is the Churchmouse Bias Before and After scarf, and it's intended to be a pair, which can be worn together or separately, in two different colors (my second color is a gorgeous teal green).  The ends are beaded, which adds a lovely weight to what is otherwise a weightless (but warm and soft) scarf.  And, as promised with this pattern, it is ugly (really ugly) during the knitting, but the blocking changes everything.

It's knitted out of Cascade Alpaca Lace, on size 6 needles, and it's one of those knits that's boring boring boring in execution, but which I know I will wear endlessly.

If I can get it away from my daughter.

The Plan

I'm not a big one for resolutions in the new year, at not least resolutions per se.  And I'm also not a huge fan of resolutions with regard to my knitting or spinning.  I think part of this has to do with the fact that my work life is so planned out (for example, at this point I have a fairly detailed plan for my work and research stretching through to June 2013; if I make it that long and get everything done, when it's supposed to get done, I will have shuffled many of my overcommitments off of my plate, and should have some breathing space to figure out the next plan - we'll see) that it's really nice not to have my knitting/spinning life too planned out.  (Note that I am not counting here the spinning classes that are coming up at my LYS, for which I am already - you guessed it - planning.)

Nevertheless, I have lately been sitting in the fiber room (aka the den), noticing wistfully and with sidelong glances the skeins and balls of yarn (we won't speak yet of the bumps and braids of fiber) which I bought with a specific project in mind (heck, I even bought the pattern) which somehow fell by the wayside as other, momentarily shinier, projects caught my eye.  The thing is, though, I bought that yarn and those patterns because I really, really liked them - and I still do.  Therefore, and after talking to Sallee about her plans for the next year (it would appear that I'm not the only one with this issue), it seems that the thing to do is to put all of that yarn together with the proper patterns and to bust a move on these projects.  It's a KAL of sorts, although I don't know that we're sure what to call it - you are most welcome to play along.

Here are the ones that were the most obvious:

(and by obvious, I mean: sitting right there in plain sight, or immediately available in my stash); and one more that I forgot when I was putting those together:

A little tour, then, is in order.   First, the ones whose yarn/pattern match I am most absolutely sure about (as in, I'm not rethinking my original plans).  That pile of blue right up there (and I should say that the colors on none of these is quite right, but I'm busting a move here, and I'm not stopping for anything), is some Rowan denim that I bought on sale in Sacramento over Thanksgiving (taking that sale as a sign that it is finally time) to knit the Indigo Ripples Skirt, which I have been wanting to knit ever since I saw it in IK in (sigh) 2007.  I'm hoping this is enough yarn... (if anyone has some Rowan denim in the dark blue (80), dyelot 225 that they're dying to get rid of, you know where to find me)

Next up: that single blue skein there is a skein of Sanguine Gryphon Bugga that I managed to score ages ago (colorway Blue Metalmark) that I've been hoarding, saving it for "good".  That's silly.  So I'm knitting a pair of the Kimono socks (my very favorite) out of it - I know I'll wear those a ton, as this denimy color goes with just about everything I wear.  The skein at 12:00 there (which is really a lovely fuscia, not at all the orangey it appears in this picture) is a skein of Baah! Luscious Lace (merino/silk) that has been destined since I saw it to become a Citron shawl (you can see the pattern right there), and so it shall.  And the two skeins of Hazel Knits artisan sock below (colorways, Rick's Cognac and Splish Splash; the blue one is closer to robin's egg blue, but the other one is pretty close) were purchased at Sock Summit this past summer with the express goal of becoming Catkin.  I'm thinking the amber as the main color and blue as the contrast - any opinions?

Next up:

The hank and ball up there on the top are the remains of the Briar Rose Seapearl (my very favorite yarn) that I used to knit my first Wine Dark Sea sweater.  That sweater, for various reasons having to do with the great mismatch between my image of myself and my actual self, is too big.  I have long been meaning to knit it again, and maybe to even write up the pattern as I do so.  I am hoping that the approximately 900 yards that I have there will be enough (it should be).  Below that is a cake of BMFA Socks that Rock lightweight in Schwarzwald, from this last year's sock club.  It's destined to be socks for Rick (using the club pattern that came with).  And the two skeins to the right of that are Alpaca with a Twist Fino (alpaca/silk) meant to become a pair of Oh Deer! for me. (Seriously, best mittens ever; they totally make me happy - so serious and elegant on top, so goofy on the bottom.) 

Finally:

These are the ones I'm a little less sure about.  The skein of sock yarn at the top is definitely destined to become a pair of socks for my dad before his birthday next fall; I just don't know what pattern yet.  (The yarn is Holiday Yarn Flock Sock in the Cafe au lait colorway.)  The little skein next to the Pretty Thing pattern is a skein of Plymouth Earth ecco cashmere; I bought it with Pretty Thing in mind, but there's more yardage there than I really need for the pattern (and I don't want to waste cashmere!), and I'm worrying/dithering about the utility of a neckwarmer in my world, so we'll see.  The cake of yarn next to the Drifted Pearls pattern is a ball of Briar Rose cashmere; my dither there arises from my fear that I might not have enough yardage for the pattern and my feeling that perhaps this yarn should be for Rick - the colors would look great on him.  So the pattern may have a rethink.  And finally, there are three skeins of Hazel Knits Entice (merino/cashmere/nylon) that I also bought at Sock Summit this year, specifically to make a sweater for myself.  I'm pretty sure that it will be a pullover Leaving (such a lovely pattern), but I'm still dithering over the pullover/cardigan question, and reserve the right to fall in love with another sweater prior to the cast on.

So there it is.  I also have some projects OTN that I want to finish, and a few that I will probably make the decision to abandon and rip this year, but that's another story.  I will also probably do the same kind of thing I've done here for my spinning fiber - I have purchased quite a bit of it with specific projects/plans/spinning experiments in mind, and it's time to organize that and queue it up.  And I can think of two or three more projects' worth of yarn (that is, yarn I purchased with something very specific in mind) that I'll probably dig out of stash fairly soon to organize like this.  How about it?  Am I the only one out there with planned but unexecuted projects lurking about, rattling their chains in my stash?  Projects which still appeal, only eclipsed by some shiny distraction, projects which deserve their day in the sun?  How about you?